14. Talking Helps

I wandered aimlessly, not really having a place to go, but not willing to go back to Alice’s overbearing questions. I knew, of course, that she was being perfectly reasonable and that I was being perfectly stupid. But really. I was nothing if not irrational. Sometimes.

I found myself running into a girl with honey-blonde hair and soft, startled eyes. She squeaked and fell over. Automatically, I offered her my hand. She took it gingerly.

“I am so sorry.” I ran a distressed hand through my hair. I wasn’t doing anything right today, was I? I was really, truly hopeless. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”

“It’s alright.” She smiled up at me easily. Her expression seemed unfamiliar, and then I realized that she wasn’t blushing and giggling – unlike most girls. I recognized her then. Angela Weber. But she was one of Jessica Stanley’s groupies, was she not?

I remembered what Emmett had said once about Ben Cheney and Angela, and smiled a little inside. “I really am sorry, Angela. I’m not quite myself today.”

She smoothed her shirt and smiled again. “Really, Edward, it’s fine.”

Her different attitude was refreshing. I found myself smiling back at her, and then stopped. I could only think of one other girl at this school who had ever had a reasonable reaction to me – one without those obnoxious eyelash flutters and blushes. Bella.

“Are you alright?”

I started walking again, and she trailed after me, her face concerned. “You seem worried.”

Her persistence didn’t bother me. She wasn’t Alice. “Maybe I am.” It was good to say aloud – even to myself. I’d been denying that anything was anything other than okay since Saturday night. It felt right. Scary, but right.

“What about?” I could see what Ben saw in Angela – a gentle, undemanding beauty. She was real, and not over-the-top like most of the others. I really hoped they could end up together.

“Um.” I teetered for a moment on an impossible line. “Bella. I think she hates me.” It all rushed out in a blur.

Angela laughed lightly. “Nonsense. Why would you think that?”

“Well. She’s not here today.” From an outsider’s perspective, I could see how conceited that would make me sound. Just as she raised her eyebrows, I hastened to explain. “It’s not like that. We saw each other over the weekend, and I’m afraid I did something rather insensitive. I thought that she would be here infallibly. I was wrong.”

“Chances are, Edward, it’s not your fault.” Angela looked up at me with perfect sincerity. “It seems like there’s a lot of things that stress her out. And I happen to know that Chief Swan is out of town right now, too. So she’s probably with her dad.”

She shrugged. “I guess so. I don’t really know her that well. She’s kind of hard to get close to.”

I knew how that went. “What is it that’s stressing her out? Has she said?”

Another passive shrug. But it didn’t seem so innocent this time. “She worries a lot.”

“About…?” And now I saw where Angela flipped from sweet to maddeningly annoying. It was one thing to assure an acquaintance that nobody hated him. It was another thing to refuse to tell him why. Yes, I knew she was just sticking up for Bella. But she didn’t have to be that loyal, did she?

She chewed her lip. “She looks at your table a lot. She doesn’t say much, but when she’s quiet I know she’s watching you.”

I shivered unconsciously. “Watching me?”

“I don’t think it’s just you. All of you. But she doesn’t tell us why.”

“Oh.” The creepy feeling was gone, but it left me feeling almost disappointed. Was I really so vain that I thought Bella was following me? “I see.”

“Yes.” We walked in silence for a moment. “You have Biology next, right?”

“Yes.” We were almost to the classroom. I slowed. “Angela, if she does come back – if she says anything to you…”

“About you?” she finished for me, grinning. “Do you want me to drop in a good word for you here and there, too? Because I could, you know. Depending on the terms.”

“Oh, God no.” I was stunned that she could have misinterpreted me so horribly. “That’s not at all what I meant. I don’t need her to notice me more. At all.” Even if a very tiny part of me wanted that. “I just need to know how much she despises me.”

“What went on between the two of you that would make her hate you so much?”

I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t very well tell her that I saw Bella kill a man. Instead, I looked around for an escape. “Oh, look. There’s Ben.”

Cheap trick, but it worked. Angela colored and hid her face behind her hair. “Is he looking this way?” she asked, her voice shaking.

I smirked. “I don’t know. Do you want me to put in a good word for you here and there?”

“Yes,” she squeaked. She tittered in embarrassment, and I smiled at her before slipping into the Biology class and leaving her to collect herself.

I was very aware that Mike Newton sat with his chair pulled almost into the middle of the aisle, close to my lab table, when I came to sit.

“Hey, man.” I looked at him strangely.

“Edward. Is Bella here today?”

“No.” Of course. When wasn’t it about Bella? Jesus. People accused me of being obsessed.”Haven’t seen her.”

“Bummer.”

“Yeah.” I opened my textbook and pulled out my homework, unable to keep myself from being annoyed.

“Hey, Edward?” Mike leaned back to look at me. “You and Bella. You’re not a thing, are you?”

“No, Mike.” Yes, I did. I could rip his head off. But that would make me just as bad as Bella. Sigh. “Go ahead.”

He grinned and bumped fists with me. Smiling awkwardly, I turned back to my book. Why would it bother me that Mike wanted to ask Bella to the dance? It shouldn’t. It couldn’t. I officially would not let it bother me that Mike wanted to go to the dance with Bella.

Since Bella wasn’t in to me, she could go and have lots of fun with Mike.

But I couldn’t help remembering how Jasper told me that Bella didn’t seem at all interested in Mike. Or, for that matter, any of the other people at her table.

I had a mental image of Mike, dressed smarmily in a poorly fitting tuxedo, whirling around a beaming, blushing Bella. Then of me, in his place. I knew which picture I liked better. Selfishly, yes. But it was a hard feeling to ignore.

And the worst part? I knew I shouldn’t be thinking like this. Images of Bella drenched in the blood of another living creature – one that she murdered – should have been dancing through my head, torturing me. I should have hated Bella Swan for an eternity because of what I saw her do. It would only be rational.